Connect with us

Local

Activists protest anti-LGBT violence in Jamaica

Activists on Wednesday gathered outside country’s embassy near Dupont Circle

Published

on

Jamaica, LGBT rights, gay news, Washington Blade
Jamaica, LGBT rights, gay news, Washington Blade

LGBT rights advocates protested outside the Jamaican embassy near Dupont Circle on Aug. 28. (Photo courtesy of Ellen Sturtz)

A group of LGBT rights advocates on Wednesday gathered in front of the Jamaican embassy near Dupont Circle in Northwest D.C. to demand authorities investigate last month’s murder of a cross-dressing teenager.

Ten activists affiliated with GetEQUAL, the D.C. Center and other groups held illuminated panels with various slogans in front of the embassy on New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. A handful of others from the Stop the Hate and Homophobia Coalition in Springfield, Mass., took part in a second gathering in Boston.

30 LGBT rights advocates gathered outside the Jamaican High Commission to protest Dwayne Jones’ murder outside the resort city of Montego Bay last month and the death of Dwayne Brown, a gay man who was found stabbed to death near the same city early on Aug. 27.

“Jamaica has long been called the most homophobic place on Earth,” Cathy Kristofferson of the Stop the Hate and Homophobia Coalition said outside the Jamaican embassy in D.C. “The violence due to homophobia has prompted hundreds of LGBT Jamaicans to seek asylum in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. Currently the country is doing nothing to distance itself from that label.”

A group of partygoers reportedly stabbed Jones, 17, to death near Montego Bay on July 21 after someone at the gathering realized the teen was cross-dressing. The radio station Irie FM reported a man at the party discovered Jones was actually a male.

Jones murder took place against the backdrop of pervasive anti-LGBT violence in the Caribbean country.

A report from the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG,) a Jamaican LGBT advocacy group, said the organization knows of at least 30 gay men who have been murdered on the island between 1997 and 2004. These include J-FLAG co-founder Brian Williamson who was stabbed to death inside his home in Kingston, the country’s capital, in 2004.

Maurice Tomlinson, a Jamaican lawyer with the group AIDS-Free World who fled his homeland last year after he received death threats after local media reported he had married a Canadian man, noted in an Aug. 29 post to his blog there have been several anti-LGBT attacks in Jamaica since Jones’ death. These include a mob who attacked a cross-dresser in St. Catherine outside of Kingston on Aug. 10, and a group who surrounded the home of two gay men in the same area nine days earlier.

Nearly 1,500 people in June attended a Kingston rally in support of the country’s anti-sodomy law a few days before the Jamaica Supreme Court heard a lawsuit that challenges the statute under which those who are convicted face up to 10 years in prison with hard labor. Education Minister Ronald Thwaites said during an Aug. 26 press conference at which he discussed a new school curriculum that it would not be “grooming Jamaican children for homosexual behavior.”

“The material stands squarely against any kind of discrimination, but there is a line to be drawn and we have drawn it clearly,” Thwaites said. “The values we propose for human relationships — wholesome, joyous relationships are between men and women.”

Authorities have yet to make any arrests in Jones’ death.

“The government of Jamaica, through the Jamaica Constabulary Force, is continuing its investigation of the killing of Dwayne Jones,” Jamaica Ambassador to the U.S. Stephen Vasciannie told the Washington Blade on Thursday. “We are confident that, if sufficient evidence is unearthed, the director of Public Prosecutions will bring appropriate charges in keeping with Jamaican law.”

Vasciannie also referred to Justice Minister Mark Golding’s July 29 statement in which he condemned Jones’ murder.

“Given our country’s history of brutality and the pluralistic nature of our society, all well-thinking Jamaicans must embrace the principle of respect for the basic human rights of all persons,” Golding said. “This principle requires tolerance towards minority groups and non-violence in our dealings with those who manifest a lifestyle that differs from the majority of us.”

The groups who organized the protests in D.C., Boston and London also called for a boycott of Jamaica’s tourism industry and urged businesses not to invest in the island’s economy “until the hate and homophobia ends.”

Advertisement
FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM
SIGN UP FOR E-BLAST

Virginia

Youngkin calls on gay Va. GOP LG candidate to exit race over alleged ‘porn’ scandal

John Reid denounces ‘fabricated internet lie’ as anti-gay smear campaign

Published

on

John Reid (Photo courtesy of John Reid)

Less than a week after John Reid, the conservative gay radio talk show host from Richmond secured the Republican nomination for the office of lieutenant governor in Virginia, sensational allegations have surfaced, which he strongly denies, that he allegedly posted pornographic photos on social media.

According to the Virginia Mercury newspaper, the allegations surfaced when Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office released a statement saying Youngkin contacted Reid on Friday, April 25, and asked him to withdraw his candidacy over reports that a social media account with Reid’s username included “pornographic content” that was “shared” with others.

“The governor was made aware late Thursday of the disturbing online content,” the Virginia Mercury quotes a Youngkin spokesperson as saying. “Friday morning, in a call with Mr. Reid, the governor asked him to step down as the lt. governor nominee,” the spokesperson is quoted as saying.

Reid responded to the allegations in an early Friday evening video he posted on his campaign’s Facebook page, calling the allegations “a totally fabricated internet lie” motivated by anti-gay bias.

“I can tell you that’s not my account and anyone on the internet can open accounts with the same or similar names as other people,” he stated in his video. “It’s predictable,” he added.

“But what I didn’t expect was the governor I have always supported to call and demand my resignation without even showing me the supposed evidence or offering me a chance to respond,” Reid states in his video.

He said he will not drop out of the lieutenant governor’s race and called the allegations against him just the latest in what he said was an ongoing effort by some in the Republican Party, especially conservative Christians, to force him out of politics.

“Let’s be honest,” he said. “it’s because I’m openly gay. And I have never backed down to the establishment, and will not,” he continued in his video message. “What happened today is another coordinated assassination attempt against me to force the first openly gay candidate off of a Virginia statewide ticket.”

Reid added, “It’s shameful, and I won’t back down, even though I know the plan is for the attacks to continue in this overt effort to make me toxic.”

Reid secured the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor last week after his only rival in the Republican primary, Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity, dropped out of the race for health reasons.

By securing the nomination Reid became the first known openly gay candidate, Republican or Democrat, to be nominated for a statewide office in Virginia.

In an interview with the Washington Blade earlier this week Reid pointed out that he came out as gay in 1996 or 1997 on National Coming Out Day in his role as TV news anchor in Richmond, where he worked for 10 years.

Following that, Reid worked as a radio talk show host for the next eight years, promoting his ideas as a gay conservative Republican, up until shortly before he announced his candidacy for lieutenant governor, he told the Blade.

Reid’s video responding to the accusations against him can be accessed here.

Reid’s campaign website and statements he has released to the media acknowledge his status as a gay candidate but point out he has a long record of support for conservative Republican positions on a wide range of issues that are against the positions of most mainline LGBTQ rights organizations.

“I’m not a diversity hire,” he stated in a press release issued at the time he announced his candidacy in January. “I’m the most conservative and proven candidate running, and I’ve boldly stood up for our beliefs in a way that should make my personal life a total nonissue,” he stated.

A statement on his campaign website states “John is uniquely positioned to take the fight to the radical progressives head on as he continues his fight against boys in girls’ sports and the extreme trans agenda being forced upon our children.”

His campaign website statement on transgender issues concludes by saying, “And we must be blatant in saying that it is factually impossible for biological men or women to personally decide to change their gender. John believes in the right for grown adults to live their lives as they see fit, but not if they impose restrictions and obligations on others and not if any of their behavior sexualizes or grooms children.

Continue Reading

Maryland

A Baltimore theater educator lost jobs at Johns Hopkins and the Kennedy Center

Tavish Forsyth concluded they could not work for Trump

Published

on

Tavish Forsyth, a queer artist and educator, posted a nude video on YouTube in protest of the Trump administration’s takeover of the Kennedy Center earlier this year. (Photo by Jessica Gallagher for the Baltimore Banner)

BY WESLEY CASE | Tavish Forsyth had come to a conclusion: They could not work for President Donald Trump.

So the 32-year-old Baltimore resident stripped down, turned on their camera, and lit their career on fire.

“F—— Donald Trump and f—— the Kennedy Center,” a naked Forsyth, an associate artistic lead at the Washington National Opera’s Opera Institute, which is run by the Kennedy Center, said in a video that went viral. The board of the nation’s leading cultural institution had elected Trump just weeks prior as its chairman after he gutted the board of members appointed by his predecessor, President Joe Biden.

The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.

Continue Reading

District of Columbia

Little Gay Pub to host April 25 celebration of life for Patrick Shaw

School teacher, D.C. resident praised for ‘warmth, humor, kindness’

Published

on

Patrick Shaw (Photo via GoFundMe)

Co-workers and friends will hold a celebration of life for highly acclaimed schoolteacher and D.C. resident Patrick Shaw beginning at 5:30 p.m. Friday, April 25 at The Little Gay Pub 1100 P St., N.W.

Little Gay Pub co-owner and Shaw’s friend, Dusty Martinez, said Shaw passed away unexpectedly on April 19 from a heart related ailment at the age of 60.

“Patrick touched so many lives with his warmth, humor, kindness, and unmistakable spark,” Martinez said. “He was a truly special soul – funny, vibrant, sassy, and full of life and we are heartbroken by his loss.”

In an Instagram posting, Shaw’s colleagues said Shaw was a second-grade special education teacher at the J.F. Cook campus of D.C.’s Mundo Verde Bilingual Public Charter School.

“Patrick brought warmth, joy, and deep commitment to Mundo Verde,” his colleagues said in their posting. “His daily Broadway sing-alongs, vibrant outfits, and genuine love for his students filled our community with energy and laughter.”

The posted message adds, “Patrick was more than a teacher; he was a light in our school, inspiring us all to show up with heart, humor, and kindness every day. His spirit will be deeply missed.”

The Washington Blade is preparing a full obituary on Patrick Shaw to be published soon. 

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Advertisement

Sign Up for Weekly E-Blast

Follow Us @washblade

Advertisement

Popular